Let’s jump straight to our inaugural, AI-free Media Insider awards – 24 gongs for 2024.

1. The Jessica-then-Tova award for controlled media departures: On the first day of the year we reported Jessica Mutch-McKay was leaving TVNZ and the political editorship for the safe haven of government relations at ANZ. By year-end, Tova O’Brien was on maternity leave. Proof that some in the media can control their own destiny. In between there was a whole lot of the aforementioned carnage. The pair are the winners of their inaugural eponymous award.

2. The Jim Henson award for string-pullers: The Government dithered on the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, eventually and conveniently using Australia’s latest legislative moves to place our own planned laws on hold. Cue many more months of uncertainty. But the Government has certainly been decisive in other areas, not least of all installing some disruptors on the boards of TVNZ (John Fellet); RNZ (Brent Impey); and NZ on Air (Philip Crump). In time for Christmas, the ‘Three Wise Men’ are now well-embedded and starting to effect change among boards predominantly installed by the last administration. Expect an even bigger overhaul of public media boards next year.

3. The Microsoft Outlook calendar award for missing a critical deadline: To Auckland Transport, for a complete and utter shambolic process with long delays in awarding its new outdoor advertising contracts − valued at $350 million over the next 10 years. For 18 months they led the outdoor advertising companies through a merry dance-slash-hell, with delays, a lack of communication and indecision. They capped it all off by announcing last week that they were going back to the drawing board in 2025, and starting the tender process over again.

4. The David Attenborough award for the preservation of NZ’s protected wildlife: NBC Universal for disqualifying a US reality TV contestant for eating a protected weka bird on the show Race to Survive: New Zealand. He missed out on a likely $831,000 in winnings; the incident made global headlines. “What I did disrespected New Zealand, and I’m sorry,” said Spencer “Corry” Jones.

5. The David Copperfield award for here-one-second-gone-the-next: Honourable mention to Stuff’s Laura Maxwell and Matt Headland − respected former NZME execs who did not last long at the publishing rival’s Ponsonby headquarters. Maxwell moved to Rupert Murdoch’s publishing empire in Australia and Headland is off to MediaWorks. But the winner this year is Melissa Lee who, as Broadcasting Minister, memorably said of the pending loss of hundreds of media jobs: “I’m not a magician”. Turns out she was, as she vanished from the portfolio a few days later.

6. The David Schwimmer (Ross Geller) Award for media’s biggest pivot: After heavily investing in its audio plans over the past several years, Stuff abandoned much of that strategy (with several redundancies), to focus more heavily on video, backing up its successful bid to take over the contract to provide the 6pm news for Warner Bros Discovery.

7. The all-over-bar-the shouting award: Stuff has done a commendable job with the 6pm news − driven by some experienced campaigners such as Angus Gillies and Claire Watson. And they pulled the plan together in relatively short time, despite some frayed nerves and hearty f-bombs.

8. The rest-in-pieces award for media casualties: Oh, where to start? Newshub, obviously. TVNZ’s Fair Go, Sunday, Midday and Tonight news bulletins. A good dozen or so NZME and Stuff community newspapers (although some have now been saved); Sunday News; Horse & Pony magazine; North & South magazine (at least temporarily); The Pantograph Punch.

9. The Lazarus award for media comebacks: All is not lost! Five of the 14 NZME community newspapers earmarked for closure have been saved by their editors or other former staff (see below). The Wairoa Star was reborn, thanks to local iwi. Bo Burns resurrected the Howick and Pakuranga Times in east Auckland. South Island-based publishers Sarah Perriam-Lampp and Lucinda Diack of CountryWide Media, bought and saved Life & Leisure magazine. The NZ Doctor and Pharmacy Today publications were saved, with new owners. And NZ Geographic was transparent about its struggles, reaching a goal of 10,000 subscribers to ensure its future.

10. The don’t-f***-it-up award: RNZ – now rich in resources and with a swelling salary bill – has a big job ahead to build an engaged audience in 2025. The public broadcaster’s website has benefitted from the demise of Newshub and with the introduction of broader content, including more lifestyle journalism. That digital performance – along with on-air tone and content changes – will continue to be a focus.

11. The give-them-some-kind-of-media-award now award: A big line-up for next year’s journalism awards − among the names that might (should) feature prominently are Aaron Smale (Newsroom), Steve Kilgallon and Catrin Owen (Stuff), Andrea Vance (The Post), Toby Manhire (The Spinoff), George Block (NZ Herald), Anusha Bradley (RNZ), and Azaria Howell (Newstalk ZB). And many others.

12. The Kenny Rogers know-when-to hold-’em award: TVNZ executive Nevak Rogers for her Instagram posts from Los Angeles, where she posed with her chief executive, enjoying a very convivial and social time at several LA studios and the famous Chateau Marmont hotel. All that might well have been okay in normal business times. But when your newsroom is burning back home as a result of cost-saving measures – with employees taking Employment Court action – it’s best just to live in the moment, and put the phone down.

13. The Nostradamus award: NBR publisher Todd Scott, who predicted in January: “NZ media is going to lose some fantastic talent as balance sheets get tightened.” Other media leaders were more Pollyanaish.

14. The Voyager dry cabbage award for 2024: Yes, the media industry has a job to improve trust and there is a percentage of the population for whom that will never be rebuilt. But my goodness, this has been overblown. With most media outlets enjoying record audiences, should we actually trust the news avoidance and media trust surveys? The surveys all have wildly different methodologies and all come up with different findings, to the extent that both RNZ and TVNZ were essentially telling a parliamentary select committee this week that they were New Zealand’s most trusted news organisation (which will come as a surprise to the likes of Allied Press in Otago which – in one survey – beats them both). As some of my industry colleagues have been at pains to point out, an important factor missed in trust surveys is how your own, loyal audience feels.

15. The hunt-for-the-bolder-people award: The NZ Film Commission is in urgent need of a hit movie in 2025. It’s now more than eight years since the last, true smash – Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Why they persisted with investing almost $1 million in an upcoming Jacinda Ardern movie – Ardern herself was opposed to taxpayer money being spent – seems one of the most perplexing decisions of all. Terminally ill filmmaker Steven O’Meagher summed it up best when he decried the commission’s risk-free approach to creativity. “If we just go to the same voices telling the same stories, you’re going to get an audience that is going to vote the way they are already are. They are just going to disappear.”

16. The kicked-a-goal-from-halfway award: Sky TV seems set to begin 2025 with a big win – a vastly reduced fee for rugby rights from 2026 onwards, according to Herald rugby scribe Gregor Paul. He reported that the existing $111m-a-year deal would likely be renewed in the vicinity of $85m. Kudos to Sky TV chief executive Sophie Moloney and her team; now we wait to see what NZR can eke out in other content deals to bridge the gap.

17. The Christian Cullen sidestep award: To the now globetrotting prime minister Jacinda Ardern, who foiled the Daily Mail aerial paparazzi by delaying her shuffle up the wedding aisle in Hawke’s Bay in January. The photographer’s helicopter didn’t have enough fuel to hang around for the money shot.

18. Rest in Peace: Steven Orsbourn, Pam Neville, Rod Oram, Rod Vaughan, John Bishop, Joe Glen, David Anderson, Lesley Staniland, Heather Ayrton.

19. Worst PR comms of the year award: Many contenders, among them Google (we’re still waiting for that interview about the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill) and AT (we’re still waiting for that explanation about the ditched outdoor contracts).

20. The Billy Joel ‘we’re only human’ award: RNZ hosts Jesse Mulligan and Emile Donovan who in the same day both managed to play explicit music lyrics on their respective shows. Afternoons host Mulligan had to hastily halt the song Paper Planes by MIA after the word m*****f***** was broadcast as part of the lyrics. Later that evening, Nights host Donovan played the song Good Lookin’ by Dixon Dallas, apparently requested by a regular listener in Sydney. Unbeknown to Donovan, the song comes complete with lyrics focused on anal sex. RNZ itself invoked the words of the New York pianoman. “We are, after all, only human.”

21. The read-the-small-print award: To the TVNZ leaders who missed the dormant albeit absolute clanger of a clause in the union newsroom collective contract that states they need to consult with staff before they even start formalising any kind of proposals around cost-cutting. That set TVNZ back in its restructuring footsteps earlier this year and led to an embarrassing Employment Court defeat.

22. The Beth Dutton Yellowstone award for fighting your corner: To TVNZ senior reporter Barbara Dreaver, who challenged TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell for apparently referring to her watch during a particularly heated staff meeting earlier this year. Dreaver told 1News: “We need really strong leadership and we expect to get it. And I’m quite happy to call out and challenge it [and] my own bosses when we don’t get that, just as I would a politician or any other person who deserves it.”

23. The mic-is-always live award: Crusaders coach Rob Penney arguably showed more passion at the end of a press conference than his team showed all Super Rugby season, when – unbeknown to him – a microphone was still live when he referred to TVNZ reporter Thomas Mead. Peeved about Mead’s earlier line of questioning, Penney said quietly to his PR person: “He’s a disgrace that c*** – who’s he?” He later apologised.

24. Broadcasting personality of the year: Congratulations on getting this far. All I can say is I’m glad we’re not in the year 2099. You have the final say, with a selection of choices from all of our big (and smaller) media companies.

Weather presenter quits Three News

Three News weather presenter Heather Keats is leaving Stuff, to join the MetService.

“Some end-of-year news from me,” Keats wrote on Instagram this week.

“I’m thrilled to say that I’m moving to the MetService next year in a new role as Head of Weather News. This couldn’t have happened without the incredible opportunities I’ve had with both Newshub and Three News over the last five years.

“I’ve always dreamed of working for the MetService – all weather nerds do! This role allows me to combine both my love of media and communication, with my slight obsession with weather. Bring on 2025!!”

Sports radio host also leaving

Sky TV host Kirstie Stanway is leaving Sport Nation radio, formerly Senz. She was one of the original hosts when Senz launched in 2021.

She told listeners yesterday that she was leaving to focus on her family – she is mum to eight-month-old Bowie.

“I do have an announcement to make, and look, I want it to be quick and painless,” she told listeners and co-host, former All Black Stephen Donald.

“It’s been the best three and a half years, but it’s time for me to go and be a mum, to relieve GT [husband Gareth Thorne] of all his hard work over the last eight months, which has been frankly, incredible.

″It’s probably my turn to do a little bit of the bath time… time for me to be a mum.”

Stanway and Thorne live in Mt Maunganui and she regularly commutes to Auckland for her Sky work.

She told Woman’s Day last month: “Moving down from Auckland was the greatest thing we’ve ever done – the amount of people who have told us they want to do the same is crazy. I mean, I can highly recommend it. It’s a scary decision, sure, and a huge change. But it’s been the best thing for our little family.”

Who’s in line for top TVNZ gig?

The new year will start with many eyes on who fills one of New Zealand’s most influential new media roles.

TVNZ has combined its newsroom and programming divisions and will recruit in early 2025 for the supercharged new executive role of chief news and content officer, overseeing it all.

In effect, it means you’re responsible for the output of the newsroom, as well as all local and international programming on TVNZ, the commercial arrangements attached to those, and future strategies.

There are likely to be at least several internal candidates, as well as a string of external names that recruiters might target, with observers expecting TVNZ will look outside its Victoria St headquarters for a replacement.

The role gives chief executive Jodi O’Donnell her first real opportunity to stamp her mark on a new-look executive team, as TVNZ accelerates its five-year digital first plan, with TVNZ+ at the centre of its news and programming strategy.

While the role covers programming and news, in reality it is likely to be far more focused on the former − given the critical importance of international deals with global networks. In that sense, the state broadcaster is likely to aim for a commercially-focused executive, rather than a content/journalism-focused guru.

South Pacific Pictures chief executive Kelly Martin’s name could well be near or at the top of the list for recruiters.

She spent two decades at TVNZ and Mediaworks, “and rose through the network ranks from photocopying to international acquisitions, before she became director of programming at MediaWorks where she oversaw local drama successes like Outrageous Fortune, and comedy hits Bro’Town and 7 Days”, according to her biography on the South Pacific Pictures website.

Insiders say she had a strong working relationship with then head of news Mark Jennings at MediaWorks’ TV3. She has a “strong appreciation and understanding – and appreciates – the newsroom role”, one source told Media Insider.

Her offsider at South Pacific Pictures, managing director Andrew Szusterman, is another likely name of interest for the TVNZ role, with a rich TV and radio programming CV.

According to NZ on Screen, high-profile shows under his watch have included The Bachelor, Westside, MasterChef NZ, Dancing with the Stars, and Married at First Sight. More lately, he has been one of the geniuses behind The Traitors NZ.

Outgoing NZ Rugby commercial boss Craig Fenton is another who is likely to attract strong interest from recruiters − and he departs NZR just as TVNZ will begin recruiting.

His LinkedIn profile outlines a 20-year career in the technology, media and entertainment sector.

“I was Google’s COO [chief operating officer] in UK and Ireland, led Accenture’s $3bn enterprise sales and deal team in the TMT sector across 120 countries in EMEA and Latam, and most recently, moved on to lead the global sports business of the All Blacks and other Teams in Black as CEO of PE-backed New Zealand Rugby Commercial, where we built and scaled to 33m+ fans an international content offering while nurturing a valued family of broadcasting partnerships and rolling out a global eCommerce offering with lifestyle merch.”

While there are question marks over the effectiveness and engagement of NZR+, the content platform devised by NZ Rugby, Fenton has more recently been involved in the Sky TV rugby rights deal and will be considered to have one of the best commercial CVs.

Internally, there are several well-qualified TVNZ leaders, but they may ultimately lose out on the state broadcaster’s likely desire to recruit new blood.

Current chief content officer Nevak Rogers is a possible candidate − she has said she is waiting until the new year before deciding whether to throw her hat in the ring. She is highly rated in the programming space, but might lose ground when it comes to overseeing news. The same applies – but in reverse – to her fellow current executive and the head of TVNZ’s newsroom, Phil O’Sullivan.

TVNZ Breakfast executive producer Carol Hirschfeld has been previously speculated as a contender for the new role but it’s hard to see her leapfrogging Rogers or O’Sullivan. Another potential candidate is TVNZ head of sport Melodie Robinson.

It will be no easy mission and it will require strong people and leadership skills, repairing – in the first instance – a news organisation in which morale is said to be at rock bottom.

The new executive will need to win the hearts and minds of TVNZ staff quickly.

$1 sales: Five community papers saved

Four more of NZME’s community newspapers have been saved by senior editorial staff – the Hauraki Coromandel Post, the Stratford Press, the Bush Telegraph in Pahiatua and the Horowhenua Chronicle.

Staff have revealed they have bought the titles for a nominal $1.

Former HC Post editor Jim Birchall will take the reins of that newspaper, while Steve Carle will take over the Stratford Press and the Bush Telegraph. And in Levin, NZME commercial staff member Richard Christie is buying the Horowhenua Chronicle.

It follows the purchase of the Taupō & Tūrangi Herald by editor Dan Hutchinson earlier this week − meaning five of the 14 NZME community newspapers slated for closure have now been saved.

“I felt the people of Hauraki Coromandel needed a mouthpiece,” said Birchall, who is planning to produce his first edition just before Waitangi weekend in early February.

“I want the paper to be an ‘open door’ for the community to share their thoughts and ideas about ways to make a spectacular piece of Aotearoa even more special.”

He’s aiming to maintain a weekly publishing schedule. His goal was to provide a news source where readers “can see photos of their kid’s sports day coupled with the headlines applicable to their lives”.

“Whilst printed copy is in decline in the bigger cities, a completely different media dynamic exists in smaller regions where many people still rely on papers like the HC Post to share their stories and keep them informed on what’s happening locally.”

He said he first became editor during a “tumultuous time” in the region, with the damage to State Highway 25A.

“Its closure dealt a savage economic and mental blow to the peninsula’s businesses and residents still reeling from the economic downturn brought on by Covid. Now that a renewed sense of optimism has returned, I can’t wait to get stuck into producing fresh content and bringing a quality product to local readers and advertisers- without whom we can’t exist.”

He said he was solely responsible for the acquisition and “report only to myself”.

“The previous incarnation of the paper employed an editor who also acted as a multimedia journalist. Support was provided by the NZME sales team, sub-editors and associated production people. At the start, I will be very hands-on, doing most of the work myself. Having said that, I will be looking to expand the team with another journalist, a salesperson and a designer.”

Voluntary contributions from media students and or any budding local writers would be welcomed, he said.

A website was being worked on “as we speak”.

“I hope to have it operational a few days into 2025. I encourage people to keep an eye on the HC Post Facebook page for updates.”

Further south, Steve Carle said his purchase of the Stratford Press and Bush Telegraph was designed to keep local communities informed.

“I am passionate about community newspapers and I am doing this for the communities’ sakes. It is my intention to give 10% of the profits back to the community. I am taking the reins because I have the knowledge across many departments and over many years, I’m a jack of all trades, which this requires.”

He described his new move as “both scary and exciting”.

“Realistically there is a lot of hard work ahead of me.”

Across the two titles, there would be two editors, two sales staff, a reporter, two production staff and one administrative role, “with me as well filling in”.

He would need a mix of community financing and investment from friends.

“The first cab off the rank will be the Bush Telegraph on January 27, followed by Stratford Press.”

They, too, would remain as weeklies, he said.

“This will rely heavily on widespread support from the community to ensure we stay on as a viable operation. Customers pre-paying for their advertising will help us immensely if they can, to start off the first three months. There is a consensus from many in the community, that they do not want to lose their community papers, so I’m acting as a conduit to maintain their presence.

“My parents purchased the business of the Bush Telegraph (then called North Wairarapa News) back in 1960. It was sold to APN 21 years ago, which then became NZME, so it’s nice to be able to continue the family tradition.”

NZME chief executive Michael Boggs said: “I’m so pleased five of our community publications have been purchased by local buyers. These papers have a long and proud history in their local communities and we are thrilled they will continue to share the latest local news and provide opportunities for businesses to advertise in those communities.”

One Good Text

Our now traditional, annual catch-up with Santa Claus.

Storylines to watch for in ‘25

Media Insider’s best-read stories of the year

While the closure of Newshub and TVNZ’s cuts dominated the media industry headlines this year, there have been many other big stories across the screen production, marketing, PR and advertising industries. Our top five biggest-read Media Insider pieces this year:

1. Newshub closure: Warner Bros Discovery boss speaks, PM reacts

2. Broadcasting Minister told last week about TVNZ mass job cuts, staff distraught

3. Jessica… then who? TVNZ political editor quits

4. Fair Gone – host quits; Allison Mau opens up on new venture

5. ‘I talk to Jodi all the time’: Simon Barnett on heartbreak and his return to radio

The Media Insider column continues through the holiday break − over the next three weeks, we’re gauging the thoughts of media, advertising, marketing and PR leaders with our Five for ‘25 series.

Thank you for your support and readership over the past 12 months. Merry Christmas!

Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.